


Duet Solitude

by JadeLupine



Series: Momentum [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Forehead Touches, Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, Love, M/M, Music, Piano, Romance, Teaching, Touch, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 11:46:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1346272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeLupine/pseuds/JadeLupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannibal teaches Will to play the piano, and Will wishes that he could fold this moment up, and keep it forever. <br/>A duet fro two, in the key of betrayal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Duet Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> So I’ve gotten a prompt on my Tumblr, asking for Hannibal to teach Will the piano. I love this prompt, and I’ve always wanted to write a piano fic, and this seemed like the perfect chance, really. Please do give it a read, thank you very much!  
> Dedicated to Navin, who taught me to play the piano with fingers that will no longer play x

“You are clumsy beyond belief.” Hannibal surveys the toast that Will has burned black, with a look of almost humorous disgust on his face. “I have never eaten food like this for all of my years, yet here you are, forcing this…burned black…”

“It isn’t my fault.” Will grunts. “Your toaster’s defective.

“I see.:

“You know,” Will says quietly, seriously, looking at his fingers. “I do not know much about you.”

The mood in the room seemed to hum.

“You know everything, or almost, about me, Will.” Hannibal raises his eyes over his book, and looks at Will, and his glance falls soft. They were sitting in Hannibal’s spacious living room, in chairs facing each other; it was a placing oddly similar to their previous status, as psychiatrist and patient. But there were no specific chair placements for lovers, Will decides. You can sit anywhere and anyhow, and you would still feel the other’s heart beating life into your veins. He stares, in a wry-smiling way, as Hannibal puts down his book at right angles to the desk, and moves forward, to stand over Will’s chair.

He gently kisses Will’s forehead, and Will lets him. He knows when Hannibal needs sex, he knows when Hannibal is angry, and he knows when he is merely being _loving_ , oh, Will knows Hannibal too well. He knows how he takes his coffee in a steep, black rush, and how he is endearingly particular about manners and meals. He knows how Hannibal sleeps at night, with his arm thrown over his eyes, as if to block out everything untoward, it was in his nature to be prim, and precise, but warm, fitting comfortably with Will, like gears knobbed together.

“What do you want to know, Will?” Hannibal asks, and tries out a small smile. He hopes Will wouldn’t ask about the scores of men he had eaten, maimed and torn apart, and a clench of arbitrary fear clutches at his heart. If Will asks, he would tell Will, and when Will knows, he would have to die.

“Why don’t you have any baby pictures?” Will asks quietly. “There is nothing of you as a child.” Will wishes he could see a younger Hannibal, maybe aged three or four, maybe with the same feathered hair, maybe with the same oily eyes, but with a childish, round face instead of the angles and cliffs, maybe with a smile that wasn’t worn and exhausted and slightly unnatural.

“My parents passed when I was so very young, Will.” Hannibal touches Will’s hair, brushes his fringe off his forehead, smiling. “When I was adopted, I was all of sixteen. Please tell me you do not think that a sixteen year old orphan boy would still engage excitedly with a camera.”

“He might.” Will allows the grudging smile to slip past his guard, as Hannibal’s knuckles graze his cheek. “How many were there before me? And don’t give me any of that _oh my dear passion, blood of my blood, your are the only light_ crap like last time, I’m sure you were quite the philanderer.”

“There was a boy in medical school. He was German, blonde and blue eyed, he wore turtleneck sweaters and carried seven heavy textbooks to class.” Hannibal reminisced, not without a touch of wry-fondness. “There was Laura, an intern, while I was still in my pre-clinical year, only aged twenty. She took me to see patients secretly, and she always wore burgundy.”

“I didn’t know you liked women.” Will raised his eyebrows, startled.

“Gender is of no consequence, Will. I would have loved you as much if you were a woman.” Hannibal smiles. He is still standing, and Will idly wonders if his legs didn’t hurt.

“Don’t sweet talk me, you.” Will felt a bit of his backwoods Louisiana accent slip through, and he hastily pushed it back inward. “Who else?”

“An Italian couple who were very willing to experiment.” Hannibal actually _winked_ at Will, and the latter felt, for one of the very few times in his life, that Hannibal was actually only human. “Lastly, a man who was suffering from leukemia. He was wasting away, yet people would not go close, afraid that a thin lie may conceal AIDs.”

“Weren’t you afraid, though?” Will asks.

“I am a doctor, Will.” Hannibal says simply. “ It was…if may say so, my fevered fit of trying to help, to save. An abysmal attempt.”

“And then there’s me.” Will says, self satisfied. He smiles at Hannibal, and he stands up, draws himself to nearly Hannibal’s height, and Hannibal feels a stab of longing for this shabby and bright, vivid man. Hannibal puts both his hands on Will’s cheeks and draws him close, breathing in the sharp scent of aftershave, and dogs, and shampoo. Will bends into the touch, his forehead almost touching Hannibal’s. It is in moments like these that they are most intimate, Will thinks, when they are not embracing fiercely, or kissing, or in the throes of sweat soaked orgasm. They are most intimate when they merely touch, and there is so much intensity in that touch. Will sometimes catches Hannibal looking at him longingly, when he thinks Will is not watching, and he feels like aching for whatever Hannibal aches for when he looks at Will, _if only he knew_.

“Do you have any more questions, Will?” Hannibal asks, mock-exasperated.

“Well…. why do you have a piano in that room upstairs?”

“That is not a hidden secret, Will.” Hannibal finds a smile on his face. “There is a piano, since I know how to play it.”

“I’ve never heard you.” Will says defiantly. “Will you play for _me_?”

“If you wish it.” Hannibal’s eyes glint, and he turns, heading to the room where there was a single piano and a long, low piano bench in a large, marbled room nothing else. Will has been in there, of course, Hannibal is not some sort of neo-Blackbeard that kept bodies locked in rooms _(if dear Will only knew, his heart would surely break in two_ ) but still, today he feels vaguely honored that Hannibal is the one leading him in, that Hannibal is sitting at the stool, because Will had asked him to.

He places his long, tanned fingers on the ivory keys, and looks up at Will. From above, Will thinks, Hannibal looks vulnerable, the angles of his face seem to bend and soften, and his eyes look wider, almost childlike. He wants to kiss him.

“What do you wish me to play, Will?”

“Anything you like.” Will laughs. “I actually don’t know anything about music that doesn’t have at least four acoustic guitars and a bottle of whisky, so play me anything you want.”

“I will show you an original work of mine.” Hannibal turns back to the piano, and takes a breath. Will, even from his vantage at the back, knew that Hannibal was closing his eyes, opening them slowly as he let out the inhalation. I love you so much, Will thinks, and I know you so well. Hannibal’s fingers pressed down on the keys, they remained supple, but not rigid, and his hands did not dart across the keys, squirrel-like, but instead, seemed to sweep across them, float gently. Will watches Hannibal’s hands, as the music swells in the room, it is a rolling tune, with an undertone of sadness, and loneliness, and Will wonders, how do you portray _loneliness_ in a simple piece of music. It was a melody that did not make you smile, but it creeps it’s fingers into you, holding you there. Will wants to take this moment, the music, and the slow movement of Hannibal’s hands, he wants to take it and fold it carefully, hide it away in the recesses of his memory, to be seen again, and again. The music drifts to a stop, and Hannibal looks up, his fingers still on the keys, his eyes questioning.

“I love you.” Will says, without meaning to, and all of a sudden, there are tears in his eyes that threatened to fall, _oh God, it was only a piece of damn music_ , and he places his hand on Hannibal’s hair, and made it fall into his eyes, it was endearing in a way that physically hurt Will.

“I know.” Hannibal says softly, and puts his hand on Will’s cheek as he drew him down to sit on the stool as well. He drew his hand across Will’s cheek, and pressed his lips to the younger man’s cheek. “I know, Will.”

“Can you teach me?” Will asks quietly, reverently placing his fingers on the keys. “This song. Teach me, Hannibal.”

“It took me eight years to learn the piano, Will.” Hannibal smiles slightly, a glint of tooth showing. “Maybe you may not be able to learn all that in one day.”

“Just this song.” Will pleads, he moves closer to Hannibal on the bench, he can feel Hannibal’s thigh through his suit. “Just this one piece, I’ll just memorize it. Just for me.”

“Follow me.” Hannibal turns back to the keys, and places Will’s hand on them. He does not first play, and expect to follow, no. He places his hand over Will’s and Will feels a slight thrill running through him, even now, and he presses down on the keys, so they are ingrained in Will, the memory of touch. He presses the keys for the melody, and Will listens to the sound drift through the room. Hannibal takes his hand away, and Will tries now, the music fills the empty air, and Will is amazed, alarmed that this sound is coming from his own fingers.

He smiles, because he is nothing other than happy.

Hannibal does not speak, but places his hand over Will’s again, presses down slightly to show him the second set of the melody, and Will remembers it, threads it to the touch of the first snatch of music, and he plays it back for Hannibal, only missing one note, which clangs out of place. Hannibal corrects him with a finger. He tries again, and it is perfect, and so, Hannibal starts on the next set.

“ _Legato_.” Hannibal says softly, when Will makes a jerky move. “Not _staccato_.”

In half an hour, Will’s hand has learned to move down the keyboard, his thumb has leaned to stretch farther than it knew how, and he has learned that his hand, the very hand capable of pulling the trigger and shooting a criminal, of holding a fork, of touching and caressing, was also capable of music, just like that of Hannibal’s. I feel special, he thinks childishly. And at the end, Hannibal places his hands on his lap, and looks at Will, making the younger man ache with the dark ghost of joy.

“Do you want to try?” Hannibal asks. “The entire song, do you want to play it? I will accompany you with the harmony, of course.”

“Yes.” Will says. “Let us try.”

“A duet.” Hannibal says.

The try, and it’s even more beautiful that the first, it feels powerfully, madly warm, and this time, the music touches both of them, overwhelms the both of them, and Will feels as if he wants to sit next to Hannibal forever, he wants to watch him grow old, he wants to watch the white hairs creep into his sandy head, he wants to drown in this music. Will wonders if he could stay here forever, this thought borders on a what if, and he is falling too much in love with Hannibal’s breathing and the warmth of him beside Will, and he can’t help it, he plays the music as if it was his own life story, and when it stops they both breathe fast.

“You are… _muzikantas.”_ Hannibal almost whispers, his eyes still on the keys. “A musician. Truly.”

Hannibal turns to Will, and he takes hold of Will’s shoulders and kisses him, searchingly, longingly, sadly, and he does not stop; he goes on, very tenderly, until he feels that they ache in unison, like the last note of the music that they had just played, it aches like a long, slow chord. Will clings to the taste and smell and feel of Hannibal, who takes Will in his arms and _holds_ him, as if all at once he is trying to comfort Will or draw strength from him, he kisses Will as if he is trying to make up for the rest of forever. When Hannibal draws away, he does not say the apology in his eyes; there is no regret (of course not, he is _Hannibal_ ), but there was a low, sad sort of hopelessness; his fingers touch Will’s cheek once, and he murmurs;

“I love you, Will.” His name feels like a caress from Hannibal’s lips, and Will closes his eyes and clings to the word, it was the first time Hannibal had ever used it in front of him, _to_ him. “Just---Will, if anything may happen, if anything will happen, just please remember. I love you.”

“I know.” Will says, and he is surprised that he has a voice. He had, of course, always known that music touched Hannibal, unlike anything else could, and he had knows that opera, and violin, and piano, those were all ways to the icy vastness of Hannibal’s heart. And by playing music, Will thinks, I have found my way there too. “But nothing will ever happen to us, Hannibal. We will live until we are old men.”

I will, Hannibal thinks quietly. But will you?

“If not, Will. _If not_.” Hannibal insists, but this time it is Will that grabs Hannibal’s hands and holds them numbingly, Will is the one that brushes his lips across Hannibal’s face. He wishes that Hannibal will never mention _what if_ s, and he tenderly kisses the other man’s fingers.

“I will remember.” Will says. “And you do know that…if…anything happens, I’ll still be with you, I’ll make you burnt toast. So we can play this song whenever we like, until our fingers are bent with arthritis, and we can eat blackened toast and shrimp paste in the morning.”

“Yes.” Hannibal smiles, but it reminds Will of a grimace.

They play the song again, wordlessly, the music tinkling and drifting through the room, they are two lonely men, and they are not, they are not lonely _now_ , but not for long. They play, and they play, and Will _knows_ there is something ominous looming over them, but still, he plays and plays and plays the music that only two hours before, he had no idea of.

It was okay, really, this duet solitude.

 

~X~

It is two months later and Hannibal sits in a prison cell, his hair less feathery, and his clothes looser than he would have liked. Still, he is pleasant and smiling, and when Will walks into the corridor, his eyebrows rise infinitesimally in surprise, and a smile quirks his lips.

“Hello, Will.” He says, and he hopes – maybe Will will smile at him, his infinite, shining grin, but he doesn’t, Will still looks murderous, angry, disgusted. Why, Hannibal thinks, I was only trying to make you perfect.

“Hello, Doctor Lecter.” Will’s voice is muted, buzzing with an unknown hate, his eyes swollen from grief that has lasted all of one month of screaming in a cold, lonely bed and hiding from the press.

“You look –“ Hannibal begins, and he is at a loss for words, for once, as he studies Will, how his eyes were covered by greasy locks of his hair, how his stubble was overgrown, almost a beard, how his lips were raw red from biting. How he looked thinner, almost gaunt, how his clothes hung on him like a rack. Hannibal did not, and almost could not find words.

“As do you.” Will replies calmly, and tries to stop his hands from trembling at the sight of Hannibal, his calm-suited, cool-eyed lover, who in turn, had almost withered a little. His hair was longer, almost touching his collar, it looked jagged, and although brushed back, his fringe looked uneven. His prison clothes did not suit him, it made him look pallid, made his cheekbones stand out on the paper-white of his face, he looked like a _ghost_.

But, to Will, that was all he was.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” Will says quietly, closing his eyes. He brandished a small package in his hand, tied with a length of brown grease-paper and rough brown skin, looking heartbreakingly home-made, and Hannibal places his hand on the bars, he does not care what it is, he wants to touch what Will had touched. “I just want to give you this. I’ve gotten it cleared by the guards. Here.”

He thrusts it through the bars at Hannibal, and the prisoner takes it, his eyes still fixed blackly on Will, who backed away, as if afraid.

“Goodbye, Doctor Lecter.” Will says, and in his voice there is a touch of the melody of a long-forgotten tune. He is toneless and tone-full, he is blank and he is vivid, he is dark and he is bright.

“You as well, Will.” Hannibal finds a smile. As Will’s footsteps recede, Hannibal looks down at the rough, homemade package in his hand and his smile widens slightly, he wants to know if this is a sarcastic, sardonic gift (typical Will) and he wants to smell Will on the object. But when he opens the grease-paper, with an almost obscene crinkle.

All of a sudden, Hannibal’s eyes turn dark, and the tears start as his smile grows even wider, there are teeth glinting in the dark of his cell. He stares at Will’s present, wrapped in two pieces of grease-paper, it was two pieces of toast, pleasantly hot to the touch, smelling fresh, but it was burnt, burnt and blackened.

_and I’ll make you burnt toast, even when we are old men_

Hannibal closes his eyes and collects himself, and he sits down, takes a bite of the toast, it is bitter and brittle in his mouth, but it tastes of Will. He waits on his bed, he is good at waiting, and watching, and he thinks, quietly, of their duet solitude, months ago. He thinks, maybe, maybe the memory of that music is enough for Will to love him, maybe this is just enough for him; to love Hannibal.

Oh, it’s got to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you’ve liked reading that, because I’ve loved writing it. I’ve modeled the character of Hannibal in here, well a lot of his dialogue, on my once boyfriend Navin, who’s since passed on, but oh well. Again, I know that the loving in this seems very intense, but this is fanfiction, and it’s also Hannibal, he would seem more like an intense, European lover rather than an aloof, cold one.   
> Please do leave your feedback on this, I will be truly appreciative and grateful.


End file.
